Saturday, January 05, 2008

TV: Amazing Race 12: Ep 1 and 4

As I stated in a previous blog entry, I lost a few episodes of this season's Amazing Race. I believe they were 2 and 3. This means I can comment only on 1 and 4 and hope I do not lose any others going forward.

The 12th Amazing Race started at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. I guess it was as good a place as any to start since most of the teams were from Southern California. I did not pay close attention to see if most of the LA teams took the shortest route to the 405 freeway and LAX (a left according to Google Maps). I have been on that stretch of highway several times, though never because . I was kind of surprised the traffic was not worse.

The producers tried to bring some new types of couples to this race. Interestingly, there were no teams this season with two young guys. The only married couple were the lesbian ministers. There is a grandfather / grandson team this time around. The Goths might be interesting or annoying depending on my mood. The Miami sisters are the cutest but I already know they will not be around long.

The teams immediately have to find flights to Shannon, Ireland. Because a flight gets delayed the teams that were on an earlier flight out of LAX actually arrive later than the teams on a later flight. One gets to see how green Ireland is, but the Amazing Race is still not filmed in HD. Hopefully this will change in the future.

The restaurant worker team decides to steal a taxi reserved for another team. The bad karma they earn from that move bites them in the ass in the form of the most stubborn donkey on the planet. It did not help that they had no "donkey whispering" skills preferring to just yell and pull instead. Hence they came in last and were eliminated. Another couple who seem to have an unstable relationship also had trouble with their donkey, but eventually figured out how to push him/her down the path and arrived in second to last place.

The team that won this leg looks like they could be the toughest team in the competition. But if they are anything like my sister and me, they will be at each other's nerves after a few days together.

The only fun challenge in this race was biking along a high-wire with a teammate suspended below to help keep the bike balanced on the wire. I think there was another wire above for safety. With my discomfort with heights, I am not sure if I would want to be the one biking or the one hanging out on the bottom. At least the scenery might have been nice enough to make me live with the fear.

Fast forward to Episode 4 where the teams are in Africa. It appears we have lost the ministers and the sisters in the prior two episodes. Young kids seem to be everywhere and are usually helpful to all the teams. The teams have to temporarily adopt a chicken and one team names theirs Phil, which seems appropriate given Phil's hair style.

At the detour teams had to choose between dancing and gold panning. I would have chosen mining for a couple of reasons. One: I cannot dance. Two: With the price of gold rising, I would have mined a few extra ounces of gold and tucked it in my pocket. Given how easy it was for teams to find gold out in the open like that, I wonder how real the gold was and how much was actually placed there artificially. I had a similar experience in Alaska where the tour guides admitted that they had to add the gold into the mud. It was fun, but I am not even sure if I eventually misplaced the tiny gold flakes I found or gave them away to my relatives.

None of the judges in the Dancing competition came across as tough as Simon Cowell. But it was funny that one of the teams that incurred a 10-minute penalty for not being creative enough included a former L.A. Clippers cheerleader. That penalty could have cost them the win in this leg, where they lost in an exciting photo finish to the brother and sister team.

The team eliminated in this leg seemed like a nice couple. They fell victim to a U-Turn penalty used by the wannabe Blond Bombshells.

Africa is a continent I have yet to visit. I do want to see the pyramids of Egypt and/or some nature preserve (with nice accommodations since I have never slept inside a tent / sleeping bag -- It even took me a long time to remember the word for this -- Camping).

No comments: